Results for month: September, 2013

You say close reading requires students to rely solely on the text during reading. But many of the Common Core Standards (and the PARCC and Smarter Balanced prototypes) require that students compare texts. This seems contradictory. What’s up?

This is a bit confusing. The basic idea of close reading is, just as you say, […]

Common Core advocates make a big deal out of the idea that questions should be text dependent. This means you shouldn’t be able to answer a question without reading the text. By all means, ask questions that require reading.

However, this is a very low standard. Many text dependent questions simply aren’t worth asking.

My colleagues have been debating the use of thematic units in the Common Core. Several of them argue that this practice does not fit a “standards based curriculum.” They argue that essential questions and enduring understandings need to be specific to the ELA standards. So, for example, a unit with an essential question for […]